RWBY (pronounced “Ruby”) is an American anime-styled animated web series and media franchise[6] created by Monty Oum for Rooster Teeth.[7][8] It is set in the fictional world of Remnant, where young people train to become warriors (called “Huntsmen” and “Huntresses”) to protect their world from monsters called Grimm. The name RWBY Hentai is derived from the four main characters’ forenames: Ruby, Weiss, Blake and Yang, as well as their associated theme colors; Red, White, Black and Yellow, and their combined team name: Team RWBY.
Following several promotional trailers, the first episode was screened at the Rooster Teeth convention event RTX and then released on their website in July 2013. Subsequent episodes were released approximately weekly, first to Rooster Teeth’s subscribers and then to YouTube a week later. The series became a viral hit, and a second season, subtitled Volume 2, was released in July 2014.
Oum died in 2015, during production of the third season for the series.[10] This resulted in a delay in the production, as well as an overall shift in the series production and release schedule. Despite the creator’s death, the remaining crew members confirmed their intention to continue the series, and Volume 3 was released in 2015 as planned.
Meanwhile, the first two seasons were released to home media and made available on streaming services such as Netflix and Crunchyroll, the latter of which would include releases of the current season in their simulcasts. In October 2016, the fourth season was released. The series has also been dubbed in Japanese and broadcast by Tokyo MX, in partnership with Warner Bros. Japan. Rooster Teeth released a video game called RWBY: Grimm Eclipse, as well as a spin-off series RWBY Hentai Chibi in 2016.
As of February 2020, the website has aired seven volumes. Rooster Teeth announced volumes eight and nine on October 3, 2019. The eighth volume premiered on November 7, 2020
Development
RWBY had been a long-standing concept of Oum’s for years before it began development. Towards the end of his work on the 10th season of Rooster Teeth’s Red vs. Blue, he developed the color-coding approach to character names and design as a hook for the series. During production on Red vs. Blue season 10, Oum asked series creator Burnie Burns if they could produce RWBY following the conclusion of that season. Burns, worried for the production schedule, told Oum “If you finish Season 10, then you can do whatever you want.” Production on RWBY began as intended, with the first trailer being finished within two weeks and premiering after the credits of the Red vs. Blue season 10 finale on November 5, 2012.
Release
Following the premiere of RWBY in July 2013, Rooster Teeth posted new episodes for the first season, subtitled Volume 1, streaming weekly on their website, with access two hours early for their sponsors. The new episode would be uploaded to YouTube the next week. On August 16, 2013, streaming site Crunchyroll announced it would simulcast RWBY. Volume 1 ran for 16 episodes, varying in length. Volume 1 concluded in November 2013, and was then released to DVD and Blu-ray.
Video games
For Rooster Teeth’s anniversary in 2014, fan Jordan Scott created a video game based on RWBY Hentai, titled RWBY: Grimm Eclipse, using the Unity game engine. It was in development for a total of five months. Based on the events in the first trailer, the demo was a “hack ‘n slash survival” featuring Ruby facing escalating waves of Grimm attacks. Richard Eisenbeis of Kotaku praised its combo system, which “excellently mirror[ed] its animated counterpart”, and its unlockable skills, saying, “you’ll feel like an unstoppable badass akin to Ruby in the series.
Reception
Lindsay Jones (Ruby Rose) said “We were worried about the reception we’d get, since we’re a western company producing something normally related to Japan. Funnily enough, we showed our Japanese cohorts RWBY and they started arguing about whether it was anime or not! But seeing the reception from audiences is so surreal, and we never expected it.
